One or more integrated circuits (“IC”) dice may be assembled into an IC package by physically and electrically coupling them to a substrate made of organic or ceramic material. One or more IC packages may be physically and electrically coupled to a printed circuit board (“PCB”) to form an “electronic assembly”. The “electronic assembly” may be part of an “electronic system”. An “electronic system” is broadly defined herein as any product comprising an “electronic assembly”. Examples of electronic systems include computers (e.g., server, router, desktop, laptop, hand-held, Web appliance, etc.), wireless communications devices (e.g., cellular phone, cordless phone, pager, etc.), computer-related peripherals (e.g., printer, scanner, monitor, etc.), entertainment devices (e.g., television, radio, stereo, tape and compact disc players, video cassette recorder, camcorder, digital camera, MP3 (Motion Picture Experts Group, Audio Layer 3) player, etc.), and the like.
An IC package may comprise one or more IC dice. At least one surface of a die may be positioned against a TIM to couple the die thermally to another element, such as a heat spreader or heat sink. A TIM may be used to improve performance and long-term reliability by thermally coupling the IC die to the heat sink for improved thermal transfer.
In the field of electronics there is competitive pressure among manufacturers to drive the performance of their equipment up while driving production costs down and maintaining acceptable yield and reliability. This is particularly true regarding the packaging of dice on substrates, where each new generation of packaging is expected to provide increased performance, particularly in terms of higher clock frequencies, while generally being smaller or more compact in size.
The combination of higher operational frequencies, while concurrently maintaining or decreasing chip size, increases the heat dissipation requirement for associated packaging.